PODCAST - Why I Don’t Train Like Most Runners
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
Now, today in the show, I'm gonna share with you why I don't train like most runners . My running journey really started somewhere [00:01:00] around 2020. I really started getting the idea in my head that maybe I should try and run a marathon, even though when I was four years old, I was told that I would never be a runner and I would never be a soccer player for whatever reason.
26 years later, I'm like. You know what? I think it's time to run a marathon. Well, at the time I didn't even like to run. I loved ~going to hit classes, ~high intensity interval training classes. I loved doing yoga and I was lifting at the time, but I did start integrating a long run every single week. And even though that was really the main run I was doing every single week, I was training with a friend of mine and we would do that long run together, and he was running throughout the week.
I wasn't, but when we did the long run together, I was able to run 10 miles with no issues. ~Well, ~this made me start thinking that ~maybe ~if I continue to do HIIT ~workouts. Maybe if I continue to do hit ~workouts throughout the week, I could probably just get away with doing the long run [00:02:00] and complete a marathon.
Well, we ended up bailing on the marathon because, ~well, ~2020 happened, but a year later ~I decided to run my own. My own self-made marathon. ~I decided to run my own self-made marathon. And at the time I was running, but I was also doing hit classes. I was also lifting and I was doing yoga. ~So ~this is how I did things forever. Back in 2024, I ran my first hundred K, and with this strategy I was able to win it. Well, fast forward to 2025. I was like, well, you know what, if I'm gonna become an even faster runner, I should probably double down on running. So what did I do? I cut everything else out and I ran, and I ran, and I ran and I ran.
And ultimately I went from 27th out of a hundred people to 10th out of a hundred people to saying. I'm done with this. [00:03:00] There's no way that I'm gonna stay out there and run for the next eight hours at night. I'm done. I'm going home. You know why this happened? So I burned myself out.
I ran too many miles. My body lost ~all ~the benefits of ~all these ~other things. Here's what happens when you just run. The problem with just running, running is very good for you. ~We are known as the running people. ~Humans, when we first stood upright, ~we ~would run down our prey. We weren't faster than them, but we could run longer than them, and eventually they would have to stop running and then we would eat our meat.
~Not just how it worked, ~but there is a problem with just running. Think about it from that perspective, even if. The first humans just ran, but didn't have any strength or abilities to actually take the animal ~that they ran down ~and do something with it. Then running would've meant nothing. for about [00:04:00] six months, all I did was run. I was running 80 to a hundred miles a week for at least a couple months, and before that it was like 60 mile weeks leading up to that. That's all I was doing. I lost my upper body strength, which you would think wouldn't be that big of a deal when it comes to running.
Or ultra running. And yes, a lot of, and yes, a lot of ultra runners are very small people, but for me, my competitive advantage has always been my strength, my resilience, my ability to carry a pack that has all of my nutrition in it, and for it to not bother me. After 20 miles, I lost my upper body strength.
The other thing is my feet, my knees, my back, were all in pain
~from all the running. ~My plantar fasciitis just wasn't going away. In my left heel, my right and left knee were [00:05:00] both starting to hurt. My quads were getting tight. My. Glutes weren't strong enough. Same with my back. My back was compensating 'cause my glutes weren't strong enough. All this was in pain 'cause all I was doing was running.
So I was losing all this muscle or I was losing the right kind of muscle. I wasn't engaging the right muscles while running. ~The next thing is ~my heart
and body.
Weren't trained for high intensity ~which ~no matter how you look at it, even if you're running a hundred miles. And ~you were ~staying in zone two the whole time,~ so you're staying in the relaxed zone, heart rate zone. ~At some point it's gonna be intense and your body's gonna need to be ready for that intensity. Well, I thought that just running ~more and ~more miles would prepare me.
But by integrating high intensity into my life, into my workouts, into my running, into my running training, I am training my heart and my body to be okay when things become intense. But when you just run, even if [00:06:00] you're doing temple work in your runs, I'm sorry, but temple work isn't ~gonna get. I am sorry, but temp temple work is not ~gonna get your heart rate.
As high as doing a hundred burpees in a row is very important to focus on intensity. The next one, my mind wasn't trained for overcoming.
Pain. It just wasn't ~because ~you can run for hours and hours and you might get bored. But eventually you're just gonna be like, eh, you know, I, I mean, this is just mindless. So when pain hits even 20 miles in, if the mind isn't used to dealing with pain because of high intensity, ~because of ~lifting different pains in the bodies ~and get a ~cramp in different areas, ~the ~shoulders, neck, everything.
Is gonna get sore at some point in an ultra race. ~Well, ~you need to train your mind. And the last thing is my energy dipped significantly. This is just in my [00:07:00] life. And yeah, this did come out in my running and ~my ~racing, my energy was just lower. Because the benefits you get from lifting from doing high intensity interval training really impacts your energy levels in a very positive way for a lot of different chemical reasons in your body.
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Now let's get back to the rest of the show.
~Okay.~
~So after having this experience, ~so after having this experience, I have decided ~that I am going ~to do what has helped me in the past, but ~I'm going to do it ~more systematically. ~So ~here's what I do. Yes, I still run. Running is ~still ~the bedrock of becoming an ultra marathon winner. ~But ~now I focus [00:09:00] on quality instead of quantity, ~and ~I still have to get a lot of miles in, but I focus on getting quality miles.
Instead of focusing on being on my feet for a long time, I focus on how can I get quality runs in every week? How can I do them ~a little bit ~faster? How can I make sure that when I'm running, I'm running on a body that is rested, that is engaging the right muscles, ~that is ~protecting itself. ~So I'll still run and I, ~right now, I'm ~actually ~running every single day, ~but I'm running somewhere from ~two to five miles ~a day.~
~So that means, you know, I'm running 14. Two, this is ~a day. I'm running 14 to 35 miles a week When I decide to train for a race again, I'll ~probably ~keep my cadence ~like this and I'll inc ~and ~I'll ~increase my mileage ~a bit, ~but ~I wanna make sure that I have time for these other things specifically. ~I wanna make sure I have time for hit ~and I wanna make sure that I'm doing hit and I wanna make sure.~
~And I wanna make sure that I'm doing hit hit and I wanna make sure that I'm ~doing hit one to two times a week. I have seen amazing benefits from doing this. I've seen my miles become easier. I've seen my body [00:10:00] become more resilient. I'm starting to get my strength back. Doing hit one to two days a week has been amazing.
I'm also lifting. And this is the first time since high school that I am lifting consistently. Two to three times per week, and I'm not even doing it for very long. This is like a 20 to 30 minute session, two to three times a week, but I'm getting stronger. I'm feeling my injuries go away. My knees are getting healthier, my plantar fasciitis is going away.
Everything is becoming stronger. Because of lifting, I'm preventing injuries. And then the last thing is yoga. And yes, I was teaching yoga once a week leading up to this race, but now I am integrating yoga and stretching daily. I'm still teaching once a week, but I'm also stretching daily. And it's not even that [00:11:00] long.
It's ~like five minutes, ~five minutes a day. ~And ~this. Is ~what ~my comprehensive training program ~is now and going forward ~as a runner. ~And ~I invite you to do the same. So if you're running already, how can you start integrating these other things? Well, let's say that you are training for a marathon.
Well, when you're marathon training, you're looking at somewhere between 30 and 40 miles being your peak week. So what I recommend you do. Is you can decrease your overall mileage that you are doing for training by 10%, maybe all the way up to 20%. Really depends on how you're feeling, but you can decrease it by 10 to 20%.
Don't touch your long runs. You're gonna decrease your weekly mileage. ~So weekly mileage, you can decrease it ~by 10 to 20%, but ~please ~keep [00:12:00] your long run untouched. So decrease these things. And then what you're gonna do is integrate, hit once a week, lifting once a week, and yoga once a week. So you decrease your total mileage by 10 to 20%.
Keep your long run the same, and then do hit once a week, lifting ~once a week ~and yoga once a week. Or really, I want you to integrate 30 minutes of yoga into your week. So this could be spread out to five minutes a day. And I'm not saying that if you're already looking, yeah, you know I'm already stretching and doing a little yoga.
I'm saying additional. You should be doing an additional 30 minutes of yoga and stretching per week. With these lift one 30 minute session a week, hit do hit one 30 minute session a week, or you can break it down into a couple 15 minute sessions. But really, if you can add 30 minutes of lifting, 30 minutes of yoga and [00:13:00] 30 minutes of hit into your weekly routine, then really decrease your mileage by 10, maybe 20%, especially if you wanna up these even more.
Then you'll be good to go. ~Now, ~if you wanna take this ~even ~further, I have my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide Movement tracking and Accountability. You can start integrating this guide into your life in a couple of minutes, and you can grab the guide linked in the description below if you're watching this on YouTube or on the show notes.
If you're listening to this as a podcast, or go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy Living guide to grab your free copy today. I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It is about progress. So I invite you to [00:14:00] take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
